Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)

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The only difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.

Oscar Wilde
Examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.

Oscar Wilde
Well, I can't help going to see Sibyl play, even if it is only for an act. I get hungry for her presence; and when I think of the wonderful soul that is hidden away in that little ivory body, I am filled with awe." "You can dine with me to-night, Dorian, can't you?" He shook his head. "To night she is Imogen," he answered, "and tomorrow night she will be Juliet." "When is she Sibyl Vane?" "Never." "I congratulate you.

Oscar Wilde
One should never make one's debut with a scandal. One should reserve that to give an interest to one's old age.

Oscar Wilde
A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

Oscar Wilde
When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.

Oscar Wilde
It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But…it is better to be good than to be ugly.

Oscar Wilde
He knew the precise psychological moment when to say nothing.

Oscar Wilde
Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.

Oscar Wilde
Youth smiles without any reason. It is one of its chiefest charms.

Oscar Wilde
The inherited stupidity of the race—sound English common sense.

Oscar Wilde
Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes.

Oscar Wilde
My life-my whole life- take it, and do with it what you will. I love you-love you as I have never loved any living thing. From the moment I met you I loved you, loved you blindly, adoringly, madly! You didn't know it then-you know it now.

Oscar Wilde
It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.

Oscar Wilde
Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it has merely been detected.

Oscar Wilde
He played with the idea, and grew willful; tossed it into the air and transformed it; let it escape and recaptured it; made it iridescent with fancy, and winged it with paradox.

Oscar Wilde
It is a vulgar error to suppose that America was ever discovered. It was merely detected.

Oscar Wilde
Facts fled before philosophy like frightened forest things.

Oscar Wilde
The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of Science is that it is not emotional.

Oscar Wilde
The nineteenth century dislike of Realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in the glass.

Oscar Wilde
Marriage is hardly a thing one can do now and then, except in America.

Oscar Wilde
You can't possibly ask me to go without having some dinner. It's absurd. I never go without my dinner. No one ever does, except vegetarians and people like that.

Oscar Wilde
I like persons better than principles and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.

Oscar Wilde
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

Oscar Wilde
There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

Oscar Wilde
It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.

Oscar Wilde
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.

Oscar Wilde
A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?

Oscar Wilde
There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel that no one else has a right to blame us.

Oscar Wilde
Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.

Oscar Wilde